In October 1956, Ronnie, a Dutch woman married to a Canadian clergyman, is on a package tour of Israel. While visiting a kibbutz, she sees the local schoolteacher, Rachel Rosenthal, and they realise they knew each other during World War II. As Rachel recalls the past near a riverbank, the film then flashes back to 1944, and begins the story of Rachel Stein, a Dutch-Jewish singer who had lived in Berlin before the war and is now hiding from the Nazi regime in the occupied Netherlands.
Bob the Tomato is driving Dad Asparagus and some of the Veggie children to see the popular singer "Twippo" in concert. Meanwhile, Laura Carrot is taunting the other children because she won a backstage pass. Her taunting makes Dad Asparagus accidentally hit Bob, who loses control of the vehicle. Laura loses her backstage pass as the vehicle loses control and careens down a hill, stopping short of a river.
Coco is a wealthy Sephardic Jewish businessman and an immigrant to France. After 15 years of financial success (due to his invention of a new type of sparkling water) he decides to throw an enormous bar mitzvah celebration for his son Samuel. Determined that the celebration will be the most fantastic event of the year, Coco alienates his entire family as he plans for the gala.
Jo Weisman, a young Jewish Parisian, and his family are taken by the Nazis and Vichy collaborators in the rafle du Vel' d'Hiv. Anna Traube, a 20-year-old woman, walks out of the velodrome with forged papers; her mother and sister are captured. Annette Monod, a Protestant nurse, volunteers for the velodrome, and assists Jewish doctor David Sheinbaum. From the Vélodrome d'Hiver Jo's family and Sheinbaum are transferred to the Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp. Monod comes along. She does what she can to help the children, who are soon falling sick from the camp diet and conditions.
In the small town of Dukesberry, New Hampshire, Davey Stone, a 33-year-old alcoholic troublemaker with a long criminal record, whose antics have long earned him the animosity of the town, is arrested for walking out on his bill at Mr. Chang's Chinese restaurant and, while attempting to evade arrest ("Davey's Song"), destroying a giant Menorah/Santa ice sculpture. Davey is about to be sentenced to jail time when Whitey Duvall, a 70-year-old volunteer referee from Davey's former basketball league, who is himself an outcast and joke of the town because of his slight senility and often disturbing, childlike tendencies, intervenes and comes forward at his trial. The judge, at Whitey's suggestion, sentences Davey to community service as a referee-in-training for Whitey's Youth Basketball League. Under the terms of the community service, if Davey commits a felony before his sentence is completed, he will be sentenced to ten years in prison.
Neil Klugman (Richard Benjamin) is an intelligent, working class army veteran and graduate of Rutgers University who works as a library clerk. He falls for Brenda Patimkin (Ali MacGraw), a wealthy student at Radcliffe College who is home for the summer. They face obstacles from Brenda's family (particularly her mother), due to differences in class and assimilation into the American mainstream. Other conflicts include propriety and issues related to premarital sex and the possibility of pregnancy, and Mrs. Patimkin's envy of her daughter's youth.
Dave is a Nestrian, a clumsy, silly-looking, brightly coloured creature who is constantly moving around searching for a place to stay, much to the dismay of Finny, his son who only wants to make friends. After hearing a rumor about a colossal wave that is said to cover the whole world, Dave takes Finny to a giant gathering of animals, where their salvation awaits: a huge ark, big enough to fit all the animals of the world .
Thomas "Babe" Levy (Dustin Hoffman) is a history Ph.D. candidate and avid runner. Levy is researching the same field as his father, who committed suicide after the Communist witch hunts of the Joseph McCarthy era ruined his reputation. Babe's brother Henry (Roy Scheider), known as "Doc", presents himself as an oil company executive but is really a government agent, involved in an elaborate network of couriers who transport diamonds stolen during World War II from wealthy Jews seeking to flee Germany, which are then sold on world markets for the secret benefit of fugitive Nazi war criminal Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier). Szell, a dentist who tortured Jews in a concentration camp, escaped capture and is now living off the diamond sales as a fugitive in South America (echoing real life Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele).
An 8-year-old boy named Bruno (Asa Butterfield) lives with his family in Berlin, in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. He learns that his father Ralf (David Thewlis) has been promoted, due to which their family, including Bruno's mother Elsa (Vera Farmiga) and 12-year-old sister Gretel (Amber Beattie), relocate to the countryside. Bruno hates his new home as there is no one to play with and very little to explore. After commenting that he has spotted people working on what he thinks is a farm in the distance, he is also forbidden from playing in the back garden.
The film begins shortly after the end of the Second World War, with a German man arriving in Monte Carlo. After checking into an expensive hotel and paying with cash, he takes in the high life of Monte Carlo, successfully gambling in a casino and attracting the attention of a beautiful French woman. Later, she discovers tattooed numerals on his arm, revealing him as a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps.
Bastian Balthazar Bux (Barret Oliver), a shy and friendless bibliophile child, hides in a bookstore, interrupting the grumpy bookseller, Mr. Coreander (Thomas Hill). Bastian asks about one of the books he sees, but Mr. Coreander advises against it; despite which, Bastian seizes the book, leaving a note promising to return it, and hides in the school's attic to read. The book describes the world of Fantasia threatened by a force called "The Nothing"; where the Childlike Empress (Tami Stronach) who rules over Fantasia has fallen ill, and has summoned Atreyu (Noah Hathaway) to discover the cure. Atreyu is therefore given the AURYN. As Atreyu sets out, the Nothing summons Gmork (voiced by Alan Oppenheimer), a werewolf, to kill Atreyu.
Annie, the wife of Manny Singer (Ray Liotta), has recently died. He realizes his young daughter, Molly (Tina Majorino), is missing and he goes off to look for her. His father, the unassuming and sweet Harry (Don Ameche) stumbles upon her under the table. He holds her. She has not spoken since her mother died. Manny's mother, the old world Eva (Erica Yohn), finds them.
The film follows notorious musician Serge Gainsbourg's exploits from his upbringing in Nazi occupied France through his rise to fame and love affairs with Juliette Gréco, Brigitte Bardot and marriage to Jane Birkin to his later experimentation with reggae in Jamaica. It also incorporates multiple elements of fantasy, most significantly with the character called "The Mug", an animated exaggeration of Gainsbourg that acts as his conscience (or anti-conscience) at crucial moments in Gainsbourg's life. The film also includes many of Gainsbourg's more famous songs, which serve as the soundtrack to the film and often serve as plot elements themselves.
Miles Monroe (Woody Allen), a jazz musician and owner of the "Happy Carrot" health-food store in 1973, is subjected to cryopreservation without his consent, and not revived for 200 years. The scientists who revive him are members of a rebellion: 22nd-century America seems to be a police state, ruled by a dictator about to implement a secret plan known as the "Aries Project". The rebels hope to use Miles as a spy to infiltrate the Aries Project, because he is the only member of this society without a known biometric identity.